Alouettes come back to stun Ticats in OT in 2026 season opener

Football is a game of momentum.

When you have it, you feel unstoppable. When you don’t, you’d do anything to get it back.

Momentum wasn’t on the Alouettes’ side in the third quarter when they were trailing 24-10 on the road at Hamilton Stadium, but defensive back Robert Kennedy III made sure his team didn’t go down without a fight.

Kennedy III managed to intercept a Bo Levi Mitchell pass. He carried the ball into the Ticats end zone to cut the deficit to seven points. It wasn’t smooth sailing from there, but that made coming back much more realistic.

“It was just film study,” Kennedy III explained. “Watching (Mitchell), I just saw that whenever he has his first or second read going, he tends to throw it blind. I was just waiting and I baited him a little bit and I just jumped it. It felt very good to score. I hadn’t scored in a little while.”

The Als managed to claw their way back into the game and eventually forced overtime.

In the extra frame, it was Kennedy, again, who helped secure the win for the Als when he stripped the ball from Tiger-Cats receiver Keric Wheatfall’s hands. Teammate Kabion Ento recovered, and the Als managed to kick the game-winning field goal just moments later.

“I was just trying to make a different,” the NC State product said. “The ball is the most important thing. It’s what everybody watches, so I saw that he basically had a first down. It was a screen play, so I’m basically just trying to make a play. Once I saw that I had him tackled, I just tried to rip out the ball.”

Kennedy’s two enormous plays helped the Alouettes overcome some issues they had early in the game. At halftime, they had already accumulated 113 yards in penalties. They finished with 118.

Winning games, especially on the road, is never easy when you give up that many yards in penalties. Still, give Jason Maas’ team credit. They made enough plays to compensate for the errors they had made.

“That’s the first thing we talked about in (the locker room) at halftime,” Alexander said of the amount of penalties the team took in the opening 30 minutes. “Someone said: ‘hey, we’re playing a pretty good half,’ and some of us stood up and said: ‘what the (expletive), we’re not playing a good half.’ On this football team, we don’t commit penalties. That was the very first thing we addressed. (Kennedy) really turned the game around with that pick-six. It was a total momentum shift.”

Alexander had a solid performance. He threw two touchdown passes and didn’t the ball over. He was able to make several key throws including touchdowns to Tyler Snead and Tyson Philpot. He also converted a critical third-and-10 to Snead on Montreal’s final drive of regulation which allowed the drive to continue. Jose Maltos-Diaz tied the game only a few plays later.

Alexander, Snead and Philpot seemed to be on the same page all night long. Snead had 131 yards and a touchdown at half while Philpot continued to churn out yardage whenever his number was called.

On top of the penalties, the Als also had to deal with three significant injuries early on, as they lost three offensive starters early on. Running back Travis Theis exited the game in the first quarter and didn’t return. Receiver Cole Spieker suffered what appeared to be a lower-body injury and needed to be carted off to the locker room and centre Justin Lawrence also came out of the game with a lower-body injury.

The team’s depth made the difference after those three players exited the contest. Running back Shomari Lawrence, who started the week on the practice squad, ended up seeing a lot of action in the backfield. Marco Dubois made two important receptions with Spieker on the sideline, and Cyrille Hogan-Saindon was solid in the middle of the offensive line.

“That’s coach Maas,” Philpot said after the win. “He talks about those last three minutes every day since the start of camp. That’s the culture of this team. We bend and we don’t break. This is just the start.”

The Alouettes will look to improve to 2-0 when they host the Toronto Argonauts in their home opener next Friday night at Percival Molson Stadium. You can get your tickets at GoAlsGo.com.